Monday 11 October 2010 03.03 EDT
First published on Monday 11 October 2010 03.03 EDT

The Commonwealth Games has been hit by its first major doping scandal. Oludamola Osayomi, the women's 100m sprint champion from Nigeria, has tested positive for a banned stimulant, methylhexaneamine. Her B sample will be tested later this afternoon before a verdict is reached on Wednesday morning whether or not she will be stripped of her medal, but she has been provisionally suspended. If Osayomi is disqualified, England's Katherine Endacott will be awarded the silver medal, and Saint Vincent and Grenadines' Natasah Mayers will take the gold.

The president of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria, Solomon Ogba, has suggested that the positive test result was caused by prescription medication given to Osayomi for a toothache. "She took medication for her toothache and we strongly suspect that it was that, which led to her failed drug test," Ogba told a Nigerian news website. The AFN intend to mount a protest against the possibility of Osayomi losing her gold medal.

The president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, Mike Fennell, said: "As far as anti-doping is concerned we have conducted over 950 tests to date and we've had results from just over 700. Unfortunately I have to report to you we have had a positive result. This result was in relation to the winner of the women's 100m final, Miss Osayomi from Nigeria. She has been notified in accordance with the anti-doping standard that applies to these games.

"Any positive test, whether it's in a high profile event or not, is something that is very much regretted," Fennell added. "We all strive for clean games, clean sport and clean competition. One does not know what sort of damage will accrue because of this particular test. We just want to let everyone know we are very vigilant."

The women's 100m final in Delhi is fast becoming one of the most ignominious races in recent athletics history. If Osayomi does lose her medal, she will be the second athlete to have been declared the gold medallist before later being stripped of the title. The original winner, Australia's Sally Pearson, was disqualified after the English team protested that she should not have been allowed to run in the final because she had false started in a previous attempt to start the race.

Both Pearson and England's Laura Turner had jumped the gun, but initially only Turner was disqualified. Turner refused to leave the track, saying that the background noise from the crowd had been to loud and that she had not been able to hear the starter's orders. Turner was allowed to run under protest, but both she and Pearson were disqualified after the race was over. In Pearson's case, the news was only broken to her as she was walking out to the podium to collect her medal. Fennell admitted that there had been a "major communications blunder" in the handling of the race.